Bandita, Chanakya National Law University, Patna
Today we live in a world where everything could be run with just a click, from shopping to running a business, from learning to communicating with loved ones separated by international borders, everything can be done online. Digitalization has reached almost all sectors, especially in the hard times of COVID-19 when businesses have to go virtual in order to operate, keep up with the profit-making process and to survive in the market. As lockdowns became the new normal, businesses and consumers increasingly went digital, providing and purchasing more goods and services online, raising e-commerce’s share of global retail trade from 14% in 2019 to about 17% in 20201. According to UN trade and development experts UNCTAD, the e-commerce sector saw a “dramatic” rise in its share of all retail sales, from 16 per cent to 19 per cent in 2020. The digital retail economy experienced the most growth in the Republic of Korea, where internet sales increased from around one in five transactions in 2019, to more than one in four last year.
However, entering the virtual world isn’t a smooth sailing for the businesses. And one of the problems could be infringement of intellectual property rights in a digitized manner. For any business its brand image is very important whether it is operating virtually or in a conventional offline mode. The brand image links the quality of the product or service provided and the business for consumers. A consumer acknowledges the business because of its brand image mainly. And this is where the whole concept of trademark comes into play. When things are online it’s the domain name which plays the role of trade marks. Like other marks, infringement of trademark, causing harm to the brand image and misleading the consumers can happen with few clicks through cybersquatting.
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